


Anything You Can Do

by PrismPunkie



Series: Space, Time Travel, and Other Love Affairs [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Amica Endurae, Conjunx Endura, Developing Relationship, Fake Science, Fluff and Angst, Friendly competition, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, More tags to come as it progresses, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Time Travel, like the dumbest smart guys honestly, mostly they just make each other miserable, past brainstorm/quark, perceptor has a crush, possibly smut, really smart idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:34:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrismPunkie/pseuds/PrismPunkie
Summary: “Just keep him out of my lab.” Is what he had told Rodimus, almost offhandedly when he knew that he was going to be living within explosion distance of the other scientist.But when a little bet gets, really out of hand, with the bot Perceptor has been in denial about liking. He quickly gets caught up in the wake of hurricane Brainstorm.
Relationships: Brainstorm/Perceptor (Transformers), Brainstorm/Quark (Transformers)
Series: Space, Time Travel, and Other Love Affairs [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1487603
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	1. Then Came The Time Machine

**Author's Note:**

> This took forever and I'm still unsure of some things but I'm gonna fly by the seat of my pants and post this while I still think it's good. 
> 
> Just for reference, the majority of this fic takes place during my other fic, Taking it Further, and is about the various background shenanigans that the two get up to while falling in love. This one probably won't be as long, chapter-wise or length-wise but I want to aim for at leaks 20k words. We'll see what happens. ;)
> 
> Here we go.

It’s like history was repeating itself.

Brainstorm just had a thing for cute microscopes. Though he wouldn’t call Perceptor cute to his face. He was determined not to call him anything actually. Just because he was attracted to the mech didn’t mean he had to play into those feelings. He kept his distance, focusing on his work and keeping himself occupied. 

At least Perceptor wasn’t much like Quark in which he never wanted to give Brainstorm the time of day. The scientist was even a bigger snob at times too, and Brainstorm totally didn’t find that hot or anything. It made it easy for Brainstorm to tease the other mech and maintain an arms length with the microscope. This way he wouldn’t get his hopes up… not that he had hopes about anything in particular.

Then he got caught trying to mess with the fabric of reality.

After that, there was definitely something different about the way the mech treated him. The dang mech just kept coming to see him. Asking about the briefcase, if he could see his notes on it, if he could see how the other ones powered it. Asking question after question about it’s designs and functions and how he overcame the issues he had making it. The worst part was that Brainstorm couldn’t get enough of the attention. He and Perceptor finally had some common ground and could speak to one another almost like… friends. So Brainstorm just kept letting the other scientist in, kept letting him come to his workshop to spend a few hours here or there just talking about math and time.

So he maybe should have seen this conversation coming.

“Come again?” Brainstorm asked, trying to keep his optics from bulging out of his helm, “You want me to what?”

“Come and be my lab partner?” Perceptor said like it was nothing at all. Like he was just asking Brainstorm to hand him something out of reach, “I’ve come to realize that the breadth of experiments I have lined up could use a second pair of hands and optics. What do you say?”

Brainstorm had to keep himself from shouting, he wanted to vibrate out of existence from sheer excitement. 

He cleared his vocalizer.

“Yes, well, of course. I’d be happy to lend a hand to a fellow scientist. My genius is a gift to be shared after all. Just so long as it doesn’t take away from my own work of course.” He said as coolly as possible, throwing in a little bragging just to seem more distant. He regretted it a little when Perceptor’s optic narrowed slightly.

“Of course, and you’ll have access to the lab too, feel free to use any of the equipment and supplies, within reason of course.” Perceptor replied, which Brainstorm took to mean ‘don’t go overboard.’

“Please, Percy, what kind of mech do you take me for?

~ ~ ~ ~

Brainstorm had a briefcase, a lot of guns, and a huge ego.

That was all Perceptor had really known about the gunsmith when they both ended up on the _Lost Light._ So he’d only had a few words to regard his fellow scientist at the time.

“Just keep him out of my lab.” Is what he had told Rodimus, almost offhandedly when he knew that he was going to be living within explosion distance of the other scientist.

The more time he spent on the ship he didn’t really get to know all that much more about Brainstorm other than he was impatient, really smart, and told a lot of terrible jokes. Conversations with the bot were easy enough since he did seem to know what he was talking about when it came down to science. Perceptor would later be ashamed to admit that he had underestimated just _how smart_ Brainstorm actually was.

And, unfortunately for Perceptor, the bot had a strange charm to him. And the more time they spent together, the easier being around him became. He almost laughed at one of his terrible puns one day and actually had to leave the room. To which the rest of the room had erupted in laughter because Brainstorm ‘broke him.’ Which, in a way he did. 

After that, Perceptor couldn’t help the fondness he felt in his spark for Brainstorm. Luckily it was mitigated by the gunsmith’s ego and the way he liked to get under Perceptor’s plating. The other scientist would take jabs at him so often that sometimes he found himself doubting his feelings. From his actions, it seemed likely that Brainstorm saw him as a rival and that sort of relationship would not do well for the small bloom of feelings in his spark. Perceptor told himself that he was fine with it, and that it was better this way. Though if anyone knew what was in his spark and not his helm they could tell he was in fact _not_ fine with it. But, as someone once told him: ‘denial is a river that runs deep’.

At least Brainstorm’s ego and attitude helped make it easy for Perceptor to quell his little crush he was developing. One time he made a jab at Perceptor’s perfectionism and slowness, he had to resist throwing a wrench at the other scientist that day. Good thing there wasn’t in one within arms reach.

Something that _didn’t_ help was that Brainstorm was actually very attractive underneath his mask. He didn’t take his mask off often, but he had seen him drinking his fuel one day and had to turn himself bodily to keep himself from staring. He told himself that it was just a physical attraction and that was all. No reason for him to get bent out of shape over it. So he continued to ignore Brainstorm as best as he could.

Which wasn’t very well.

Perceptor came to the conclusion that this was a disaster. He was on a mission, he couldn’t afford to let himself get distracted by silly things like attractive jets who built guns upside down, or so he had heard. He never had the guts to actually go down to Brainstorm’s workshop. Too afraid that his attraction would rear it’s ugly head in front of the jet. And, above all, Perceptor had wanted to keep things professional.

All of that flew out the door when Brainstorm invented a time machine.

To say Perceptor was floored was putting it lightly. He could marvel at his invention for hours and still not completely understand the scope of it. He had secretly resented it’s order to be destroyed and had immediately, and casually as possible, sent a comm to the jet to see his work for the device. For scientific purposes of course. Not realizing that there may have been an error in his thought process.

He tried to limit his time spent in the jet’s workshop to a minimum, going down there to ask specific questions and then leave as fast as possible. Which still took at minimum a few _hours_. But after weeks of going back and forth, negotiating time spent with the jet with himself, he got a terrible and great idea. He had been thinking back on the time when he and Wheeljack had spent time in the lab together, feeling nostalgic for those days, when it occurred to him that he could ask Brainstorm to be his lab partner.

It was always nice to have someone else in the lab with you, it helped keep you sane if you pulled long hours, which happened a lot to Perceptor and Wheeljack back in the day. Sometimes they would just stand around and hypothesize for hours. Sometimes even doing small experiments based off stupid little things they came up with on Earth technology. They found 16 new uses for the Earth ‘washing machine’ that had nothing to do with washing anything.

Although, Wheeljack had been easy enough to get along with because of his genuinely positive disposition. Brainstorm might not be the same. He was arrogant and more than a little self-centered. But after the time Percy spent with him, he had realized a few things here and there about why he was that way, and conversation flowed much more easily than it used to. He fought with himself for a few days on it but inevitably he decided that, at minimum, the other scientist would be easier than Wheeljack just because he wouldn’t blow up the lab five times in a week. 

Well, at least, he hoped not.


	2. The Bet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perceptor and Brainstorm don't see optic to optic.

To be fair, it took twice as long as Perceptor thought it would for things to start going to Pit.

Brainstorm’s workshop had looked like controlled chaos at first. But as the gunsmith moved into working primarily in the lab for more practical experiments, much of the ‘controlled’ was lost and only the chaos remained. Perceptor had, not so subtly, typed out and posted- in _various_ parts of the lab- proper lab safety standards and regulations. In the hopes that perhaps the scientist would slow down for half a klik to read them.

No such luck.

But there weren’t any noteworthy emergencies until about a week into their shared lab experience. Luckily, too, as Rodimus had finally resurfaced from about a 4 day absence to come see what was going on. Or perhaps, not luckily.

“Brainstorm.”

“It’s size should go back down.”

“Brainstorm.”

“All our notes indicate that it’s size will only swell to… okay it’s already bigger than that— it’ll be fine.”

It was in fact, not.

The large organic plant that Brainstorm had been growing as part of their shared experiment, some type of cyber-hybrid the two of them had hoped would make energon, had grown to monumental proportions. Despite his warnings, Brainstorm must have fed the thing twice as much as necessary. Even more disturbing, it had recently formed a pustule. A pustule that had swelled to twice the size of a minibot within hours. It glowed and pulsed energon pink but under a thin film of beige-green skin from the plant that turned it slightly off-color. At first the pulsing was only every now and then but now it was rapidly pulsing, and the glow was intensifying.

“Brainstor—” Perceptor was cut off as the door to the lab opened—damnit Brainstorm the doors should have been on lockdown during something like this— and Rodimus stepped in, Ultra Magnus right behind him.

“What in the name of Primus—” The captain began, taking in the size of the plant.

The pustule burst.

Hot pink fluid sprayed all over, hitting everything within about 10 meters of the plant and spattering even further with a lighter layer. Drenching both scientists, half the lab, and the captain in the ichor. Ultra Magnus had a vaguely Rodimus shaped outline on his legs. Out of sheer embarrassment, Perceptor found his face in his sticky, pink covered palm.

“Rodders!” Brainstorm said, squishing through the muck to make his way to the door, “I think we just had a breakthrough.”

Rodimus’s blue optics blinked through the pink as it dripped down his frame, disgust clearly written on his face, “You don’t say. Good or bad?”

“Well let’s see.” Brainstorm ran a finger through the pink on his own armor and removed his mask to stick the finger into his intake before Perceptor had even formed half of his protest, much less gotten it out.

“Hmm, it’s got a weird after taste. But it seems like energon to me!” Brainstorm reported before closing his mask over his, handsomely smiling, face. Perceptor could feel himself turning red for multiple reasons but he chalked it up to exasperation.

“But how to harvest it before the explosion is the next tricky part…”

Ultra Magnus and Rodimus shared similar looks between them before looking at Perceptor. Clearly at a loss for words. 

Perceptor was also at a loss for words, from the goo covering his lab, to the fact that Brainstorm just _ate_ some of it. All he could do was trek a slimy trail through the pink substance staining his floors to close the doors on his superiors with a half-hearted promise of:

“We’ll get this cleaned up and report back with our findings at the next meeting.”

He then turned to the mech responsible for his now pink covered lab, who looked to be gathering samples. Looking as if this was just another day in the lab. Perceptor wasn’t sure if he was impressed or furious. Either way he crossed his arms and approached the jet’s peripheral with his best put upon scowl, waiting for him to notice.

Brainstorm turned half-way, yellow optics bright and happy, “Quite the success, am I right?”

Perceptor felt something under his plating twitch and he opened his mouth to shout only to clamp it shut half a second later. He instead said, as calmly as possible, “The lab is pink.”

“Yes it is, don’t worry it’ll come off.” Brainstorm said nonchalantly. Perceptor blinked several times.

“Brainstorm, if I even begin to list the numeral safety standards you’ve broken this week alone, it would be another week before I got through them all.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Percy.” Brainstorm said while setting aside his samples on one of the few tables that was only just barely covered in pink, plant goo.

“How are we even going to begin to clean this up?” Perceptor said, waving his arms at the complete mess covering the room.

“Eh, I’ve had worse. You should have seen my workshop the second week into the journey.”

Perceptor didn’t want to ask, he didn’t want to know. He was rapidly growing concern for the stickiness on his pedes. It was getting very hard to lift his pedes from the floor. Intrigued, he ran a finger over one of the tables and found stringy pulls of pink following his finger. He looked around and then at Brainstorms own pedes before realizing that the substance was darkening. In panic he grabbed the jet and pulled him. Sure enough, his feet were stuck to the floor by the goo, and he lurched with Perceptor’s yank. Brainstorm tried to pull away but Perceptor’s hand was now stuck to his forearm.

“Hey! What’s the big—” Brainstorm started but the two of them swayed, the stickiness both keeping them in place and knocking them off balance. They flailed as Perceptor tried to take a step backwards. Unfortunately because his hand was now thoroughly glued to the jet he ended up pulling him again.

“I’m-I’m stuck! Percy let go!”

“Can’t you see I’m trying to!” Perceptor instinctively reached out to try and push the mech’s chest with his other hand, effectively adhering that one to the jet as well. In trying to stabilize himself, Brainstorm ended up grasping onto either of Perceptor’s arms, getting himself stuck to them as well.

“Now look what you did!”

“Me?!” Perceptor fumed, “I’m not the one who got us into this nightmare!” 

After a few more seconds of angry pulling, Perceptor shouted, “Okay, okay, stop. This is getting us nowhere trying to pull ourselves apart.”

“Well, what do you suggest we do?” Brainstorm asked, his winglets fluttering in what Perceptor assumed was panic. Flight frames never did like the thought of being trapped.

Perceptor looked around and assessed the situation, “If we can unstick our pedes we can make it to the chemical shower.” He tried very hard to keep himself from thinking too hard about taking a shower with Brainstorm.

One problem at a time Perceptor.

“Okay, how are we going to do that?” Brainstorm asked looking down at the floor where they were stuck, “We also have at least 20 steps of goo to get through before we get there.”

Perceptor was stopped mid sentence as he received a comm. He answered it aloud.

“Yes, Ultra Magnus?” Brainstorm quirked a brow at him.

:Is everything okay down there? The substance we were covered in has become… well.:

“Yes sir, everything is fine. It should wash off with some solvent. Is Rodimus okay, I know he was hit with most of it? Is he angry?”

:Quite the contrary actually, he wants me to stick him above the captain’s chair for Megatron’s shift so he can, quote unquote, ‘spook him like a goo monster.’ He also requested to have some put on the captain's chair itself but I drew the line there.:

“Oh, well that’s… good?”

:Do you want me to send some of the clean up crew to the lab? It looked like quite the mess.:

“No! No, don’t send anyone down here, we’re quite okay.” Perceptor answered a little too quickly, thinking about how embarrassing the two already looked. Judging by Brainstorm’s bulging yellow optics the jet was inclined to agree.

:If you insist, send a comm if you change your mind.: 

Perceptor breathed a sigh of relief. He could always count on Ultra Magnus not to ask questions when he, clearly, didn’t want to know.

“Soooo?” Brainstorm said, flexing his winglets in anticipation, “How are we getting out of this?”

“Um,” Perceptor looked around again.

“You have no idea do you?”

“I’m thinking! If you’re so smart what’s your idea?” Perceptor snapped.

Brainstorm also began looking around and Perceptor sighed. He tried to think. Which was always just a little bit harder when in close proximity to the jet. Frustration. Yes, that must be the reason. He closed his optics to block out his distraction, desperately trying to think a way out of this embarrassing mess. Though, much more, he was actually holding onto the jet. If anyone walked in, it would look like he was copping a feel on his chest plate…

“What if I used my thrusters—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Perceptor cut off Brainstorm quickly, “Before you blow us up.”

“We won’t blow up! This energon has a different consistency than raw form, chemically it should take a lot more firepower to ignite.”

“ _Should_ isn’t a ringing endorsement.” Perceptor argued.

“I’ll only use my thrusters are on my shoulders so it shouldn’t even touch the energon. I’ll just give us a push so that we slide over to the clean part of the room.” Brainstorm continued like he hadn’t even heard the complaint.

Seeing no other options, and that his arms were starting to cramp, Perceptor sighed, “I want it to be put on record that I protested to this heavily.”

“Noted.”

Praying that his arms weren’t ripped off, the energon wouldn’t blow up, _and_ that no one walked in on this mess, Perceptor leaned into Brainstorm to steady himself. How worse could this get anyway?

Ask and the universe will deliver.

It took less than a second for things to go from bad to… awkward.

The first thing that happened was that they became unstuck from the floor and flew across the room, hitting the wall on the other side with a monumental thud. The pink goop had hardened on them so they fortunately didn’t start sticking to the wall. Well the goop had hardened where it was _thin_ at least. _Unfortunately_ , Brainstorm had a thick amount on his chest and waist, where Perceptor was now stuck in an uncomfortable half-hug thanks to the force of their movement.

“Primus, kill me now.” Perceptor muttered while the two of them scrambled to keep themselves upright and he tried to keep his processor off just what was stuck to _what_.

“I told you it would work!” Brainstorm said, sounding smug as ever.

“Less talking and more walking to the chemical shower.”

“Sheesh, someone’s ungrateful.”

“Brainstorm!”

* * *

After finally getting unstuck and cleaned off, Perceptor and Brainstorm spent the next half of the cycle just cleaning up the plant gunk that had solidified to most of the equipment. It came off easily enough, but it invaded every nook and cranny it could find.

“This lab will never be the same,” Perceptor sighed as he cleaned a smidge of pink out of his centrifuge.

“That’s for sure,” Brainstorm chimed in, “That was probably the most action it’s seen—ever.”

Perceptor didn’t have time to unpack _that_ statement in it’s entirety before he leveled a glare at the other scientist, “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Brainstorm tilted his head, “I’m just saying that, for having a genius using it, this lab has seen very few actual experiments.”

Here we go again. 

Perceptor had a feeling that was where this was going. From day one the other scientist had been constantly making comments on how ‘tame’ his experiments were. How he couldn’t handle doing anything other than calculating on a computer all day. It was the one time the annoying characteristics of the jet came out in full force, when he was _bragging_. Well Perceptor wasn’t about to be pulled into it again. He ignored the other scientist in favor of tracking down more pink gunk that was stuck in the crevices of the mass spectrometer.

He was almost done getting the last of it when a gentle thump alerted him to Brainstorm’s new position sitting atop the machine. The jet kicked his legs out playfully, and painfully distracting. Perceptor forced his optics up to the jet’s instead of the long legs dangling next to him.

“Come on Percy, when are you going to do some real experiments? Test some theories? Break some Laws?” Bright yellow optics were staring down at him and he felt his intake run a little dry.

“Please don’t sit on delicate equipment.” Perceptor said, poking Brainstorm in the side.

“C’mon Percy, I thought you asked me to be your lab partner so we could discover something exciting.” Brainstorm cocked his head, “But you just type things into your computer all day.”

“I was recording data.” Perceptor said simply, choosing to turn himself away from the jet, who had scooted even closer to him, “Which is an integral step in the scientific process you seem to have forgotten about.”

“Data-schmata— if it works, it works in my book.” Brainstorm _pfft_ at him.

Perceptor felt so close to rolling his optics clear out of his helm, “How you managed to invent a time machine without killing yourself first baffles me at times.”

“Well I guess I’m just that good.” Brainstorm’s smugness was palpable. 

Perceptor could feel himself taking the bait as he turned around to continue to argue. He stopped up short when he almost bumped right into the gunsmith, who had been approaching from behind him quietly. Bright yellow optics bore down at him, excitement evident in their glow, he was _enjoying_ this. Teasing him. Perceptor narrowed his optics, an idea popping into his processor.

“Why don’t we just see about that?” He said with a sudden sly smile, “I bet you couldn’t last a week on one of _my_ experiments, but I could run circles around yours.”

“What kind of bet would that be, it would be completely unfair for you.” Brainstorm put his hands on his hips, cocky as ever.

“Let me finish,” Perceptor removed his optic sight and unsubspaced a cleaning cloth, keeping the jet hanging on his words for a moment, “As part of the bet, we would also swap methods. You would have to do rigorous data upkeep, as a scientist should do, and I’ll adopt your… less conventional methods. The first to admit defeat to an experiment loses.

Brainstorm’s optics flared at the challenge, “I’ll take that bet, if you let me name one more term.”

Perceptor put his hand to his chin in thought, “That seems only fair, what is your term?”

Anyone with optics could see how much that prospect excited Brainstorm, as the jet rubbed his hands together, “Everything you make has to be in the shape of a gun.”

“What?” Perceptor spluttered, “But—”

“We’re assigning experiments to each other right? All of yours need to be gun shaped. Shouldn’t be an issue for someone as _smart_ as you Percy.” Perceptor could hear his slag-eating grin behind that faceplate of his.

“Fine, but if you miss a single check in on your data, you lose.”

“That hardly seems—”

“Too difficult for you? Afraid you don’t have the patience?” Perceptor narrowed his optic in a challenge.

“I’ll show you patience.” Brainstorm said rushing over to the door suddenly, nearly knocking Perceptor over with his wings as he turned, before leaving he stopped to say, “I’m going to science your scope off, just you wait.”

He watched the jet leave before realizing what he had just done. Why had he let the jet get under his plating? He could have just brushed him off like always. But he didn’t _want_ to brush him off. He liked engaging with the other scientist like this. He enjoyed the challenge that Brainstorm presented every time he stepped into the lab. And he supposed he wanted a chance to prove to the jet that he could keep up with him. Intellectually.

For what reason other than that, Perceptor could not say. He sighed as he went about putting things away in the lab and prepared a data pad for the jet tomorrow.

As he was walking back to his hab later that evening, he realized that neither of them had set out just what the other would _win_ at the end of the bet.

Or what they would lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind comments! I'm glad to see you guys are excited for this series :) Also, I feel I should add that I don't really have an upload schedule for this fic because my own schedule is so inconsistent. I am going to try for once a week, probably around Wednesdays but it depends on how much I get done in my down time.


End file.
